Archive for September, 2011

This reply and the one that will follow should be seen as a continuation of my reply criticizing the view of economist Dean Baker that the U.S. dollar is “overvalued” and his claim that the U.S. trade deficit could easily be corrected and the U.S. unemployment crisis eased by simply lowering the exchange rate of the U.S. dollar against other currencies.

I had originally planned to continue the discussion of world trade and currency exchange rates the following month but the contrived U.S. government debt crisis in August forced a change of plans.

Reader Mike has made some interesting remarks about world trade and the dollar system—the foundation of the American empire, which has dominated the world politically, militarily as well as economically since World War II. To understand the growing threat of a renewed crisis barely two years after the official end of the “Great Recession” of 2007-09, it is important to understand both world trade and the dollar system.

Discussing Baker’s arguments for a lower dollar, Mike wants to know if there is an objective basis for determining if currencies are “high” or “low” in relation to one another. Baker summarizes his argument as follows:

“The U.S. pattern of spending more than it takes in is due to the fact that the dollar is too high. In a system of floating exchange rates, like the one we have, the price of currencies is supposed to fluctuate to bring trade into balance. This means that the trade deficit is caused by the over-valued dollar and a decline in the dollar is the predictable result.”

The obvious problem with the view that the U.S. dollar is “overvalued” is that ever since the end of the Bretton Woods system 40 years ago, the exchange rate of the U.S. dollar has shown a secular tendency to decline against other currencies. If the dollar was “too high” in the sense that there is a correct level of exchange rates that would end the U.S. trade deficit, why hasn’t the secular fall in the dollar brought the U.S. trade account into balance?